If we want to build structures that feel alive we will have to get past the idea that “form follows function,” a mechanistic notion that mainly considers physics, and start thinking of life and order as essential properties of structure.
This new view will take into consideration the wholeness of the structure, not just how it functions but also how it feels and how it is organized.
A New Vision of Architecture
To achieve this aim – to make buildings which have life and profound order – it is necessary to be rescued from the mechanistic trap by concentrating on the life and order of a building as something in itself. (22) I believe such a formulation can only come from a new view of the world which intentionally see things in their wholeness, not as parts or fragments – and which organizes “life,” even in an apparently inanimate thing like a building, as something real.
Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order, Book One, The Phenomenon of Life, page 22
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This idea of a new kind of order stems from the idea that All Matter and Space Have Some Degree of Life.
This new way of thinking about order is not mechanistic. It requires a different way of thinking about nature, especially because Order is Something We Recognize But Can’t Define.
